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Learn Your First Language

Picking what computer language you learn first can be challenging. There are a lot of factors that go into selecting the language. The first thing you want to think about is what do you want to do with the language? Do you want to create an app for your phone, or for your computer, or maybe you want to make a website or a web application. All of these are critical in choosing the language you want to learn. When you decide what language you want to learn just click the corresponding image and it will take you to a place where you can get started.

Want to create a website?

HTML – The very foundation of the internet. I always like to say that HTML is the bones of webpage. HTML is usually all of the content on the website this includes text, images, links, etc. This language is usually learned along with CSS. With HTML you can create a basic website. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language.

CSS – I like to explain this as the skin of the webpage. CSS is the design. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The key word in that sentence is style. This language is usually learned after or with HTML. It is usually not learned alone because with pure style and no content (HTML) you can’t make much of a webpage.

Javascript – I like to explain this language as the makeup of the webpage. Javascript makes the webpage interactive for the user. With Javascript things move and jump if the mouse goes over it and things like that. Javascript is not a necessity you could make a webpage with just the “bones” or with the “skin” and the “bones”, but Javascript is just a nice plus to have.

PHP – Don’t really have a metaphor for this language, but PHP is a great scripted programming language to learn. PHP is a server-side programming language. If you right like on any page and click “View Page Source” it will show you all the HTML, CSS, and Javascript that goes into making that webpage. One thing you won’t see is the PHP code (if there is any) the reason is because PHP is a server-side language. Lets say you type some PHP code that shows the date which would be done by typing something like this:

<?phpecho “Today is ” . date(“Y/m/d”) . “<br>”;?>

You would never see the code that it takes to make the data and time, instead you would see the date Today is 2015/08/28. This is because instead of the web browser doing the work, the work is done by the web server with PHP. So, why is this a good thing? Let’s say you are coding a website where the user can login. In the PHP code you would write, if the username and password exists let the user login and return their information. If this code wasn’t handled by the server it would be a huge security hazard for the website, someone could simply edit the code to say, return every users username and password. PHP is used for things like login, register, email forms, etc.

Ruby – A language that is on the rise. Websites like Twitter, Github, and Hulu are all coded in Ruby. Ruby is slowly replacing languages like PHP. By learning Ruby you can later learn Ruby On Rails which is a framework for Ruby that has default tools for databases, web services, and web pages.

Want to make a desktop application?

Visual Basic – The first programming language that I learned and quite possibly one of the easiest programming languages. Visual Basic has a visual GUI editor so instead of typing something like:

In Visual Basic you can just drag and drop and change all the options of the GUI item visually instead of with code which has it’s pros and cons. One con being that not all programming languages are like that so in a way you get spoiled with Visual Basic.

C++ – The language that most Windows applications are coded in. It’s a big learning curve if you’re going from Visual Basic to C++, but once you learn C++ it will be your best friend for Windows applications.

Java – Another programming language that is on the rise, due to it’s multi-platform capabilities is high in demand. Java is another programming language that I know and I found it easier to learn than learning C++ or many of the other desktop programming languages. Java is definitely a language a recommended you learn because you can do so much with it.

Python – Although python is a desktop programming language it can also create web applications. Another programming language that I know and I also recommend you learn. It’s an easy language to learn for example to print something you quite simply type print “print this” no semi-colons no curly braces very simple, easy, and to the point.

C# – C# or C Sharp is yet another programming language made by Microsoft for Windows operating systems with Visual Basic and C++. C# uses the dot net framework just like Visual Basic and it’s syntax looks somewhat like Visual Basic just with curly braces and semi-colons.

Objective-C – A programming language made by Apple almost exclusively for Apple products. This includes iPods, iPhones, and iMacs. You can only code in Objective-C if you have an Apple computer. The syntax is very similar to C and C++. With Objective-C you can make not only Apple desktop applications, but also apps for iPhones, iPods, etc.

Swift – Another programming language developed by Apple for Apple. Swift was made after Apple saw that Objective-C was slowing deteriorating and getting more and more outdated. Swift is a modern programming language made to be as easy to program as ever. To print hello world you type: println(“Hello, world!”) which closely resembles Java which is System.out.println(“Hello, World!”); to print hello world.